Strawberry Cake
by Twilight Joltik
Summary: After learning it's Kirby's birthday, his so-called friends scramble to make him a cake. One-shot.


_**AN- So, according to Nintendo's eShop sale, today is Kirby's birthday, or at least the anniversary of Kirby's Dream Land's release. So, to celebrate, I made him a cake! Or rather, I wrote a story about his friends doing so. Close enough, right? So, I only own my own ideas, Nintendo owns Kirby, the internet owns the strawberry cake recipe I found, thank you, and enjoy! –Twilight Joltik**_

 _ **PS, cover art by RileyKitty, thanks to her for letting me use it~**_

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 _Strawberry Cake_

 _By Twilight Joltik_

In the dining hall of Dedede Castle, at the dining table that was fifty times too long for the single person who ever ate at it sat three figures. At the head of the table was the castle's king, sitting up proudly and looking between the other two. Said other two were his loyal servant, Bandanna Dee, who was looking at him eagerly, and a rather bored Meta Knight who kept fidgeting with the fancy golden fork that had been sitting there since three summers prior.

After what seemed like an eternity to the other two, King Dedede finally spoke up. "So, I suppose you're all wondering why I've gathered you today."

"Not particularly," Meta Knight flatly replied. "I would be grateful if you got on with it, though."

Bandanna Dee made a small huffing noise. "Be respectful to his majesty," he implored. "He did invite you here, after all."

Begrudgingly, the knight turned to look at the alleged "king" straight on. "That's more like it!", Dedede exclaimed. "Now, it has come to my attention that it is that little pink pest-ball's birthday, and because he has no other friends, it is our responsibility to throw him a party."

"If I remember correctly, he has other friends," corrected Meta Knight.

Dedede gave a mighty shake of his head. "Nope! We are the only ones who-"

"But there's that fish and hamster and owl and-"

"Only. Friends," repeated the king.

"-and Adeleine, don't you remember her?"

If it wasn't such an absurdly long table they were sitting at, Dedede probably would have flipped it over. "ONLY FRIENDS!", he shouted.

After a moment, Meta Knight gave a small chuckle. "Oh, this is because he was the only one who came to your last birthday party, isn't it?", he inquired.

"Those were fabricated rumors!", Dedede practically sobbed. "Lots of people came to my party, but you wouldn't know because you were busy with sword things!"

"Sorry, he's a bit sensitive about that incident," whispered Bandanna Dee.

His king shot him a glare. "What did I tell you about whispering?"

The servant's eyes widened and he quivered, crying out "Y-yes sir! Sorry sir!"

An annoyed scowl covered Dedede's face as he slammed a yellowed cookbook onto the table, opened to a page on strawberry cake. "Yes, so as I was saying, that nuisance wouldn't really care much about a party, so I say we just bake him a cake and be done with it."

"That sounds fair enough." Meta Knight stared blankly at the cookbook until something terrible seemed to occur to him. "Wait," His yellow eyes widened in terror. "You mean to say we're meant to bake him this cake?"

Dedede shrugged. "Well, none of the bakeries here will do something for a Kirby-sized appetite on short notice, and I sort of just thought of this, so it looks like we don't have a choice."

"Do you not have an army meant for menial tasks like this?", Meta Knight questioned.

A sigh came from the king, and Bandanna Dee merely laughed. "Ah, you see," explained the servant. "They're sort of busy *ahem* 'distracting' Kirby so we could surprise him."

"What?"

"They're pillaging the countryside for food so Kirby will go after them and they'll distract him until we're done and he'll show up here whenever he gets through with them to try to beat me, and then we'll surprise them," explained Dedede with a groan.

Meta Knight slammed his face on the table. "Really? Are you that stupid?", he questioned. "You didn't think to- oh, I don't know, ask your army to make the cake and trust that Kirby would have absolutely no reason to come all the way up to the castle for no reason?"

"I only thought of that after I'd already sent everyone out," Dedede explained with a huff. "But it's too late to stop anything now, so let's just hurry up and bake the cake before Kirby gets here."

Despite his objections, Meta Knight found himself dragged into the kitchen before he could disagree to the arrangement.

Once there, Dedede sat the cookbook on a counter and glanced at it. "Now, this recipe books says we need…"

"Sugar, eggs, butter, flour, milk, baking powder, vanilla, strawberry gelatin, and strawberries, sir!", proclaimed Bandanna Dee. "Worry not, I already got everything out!"

On another counter laid everything the servant had listed out, plus a multitude of bowls and measuring cups. Meta Knight, who seemed to have already begun searching the cabinets, sighed as he saw this. "Okay, what now?", prompted the knight bitterly.

"Says here we need to 'cream' the dry ingredients and the butter," Bandanna Dee read. "Um, what does that mean?"

After thinking on it for a moment, Dedede took the largest bowl, which was bigger than most bathtubs, and dumped in a ton of flour, sugar, gelatin, butter, baking powder, strawberries, and milk without measuring out any of them or cutting the stems off the strawberries. "Probably means we dump them all in with the milk," he decided. "So, what's next?"

Under his breath, Meta Knight groaned "I'm pretty sure that's not what you're supposed to do."

"What was that?", Dedede practically yelled.

With a glance at the page, Meta Knight amended his previous statement to "Add in the eggs one at a time."

The king did so, cracking the eggs vigorously and most certainly not taking caution to assure none of the eggshell fell into the batter. "Okay, what's next?"

Upon further reading, Meta Knight quickly realized how incorrectly the king had gone about "creaming". He simply skipped over the parts saying how to add in the things Bandanna Dee had accidentally included by saying "dry ingredients" and ended up with "Blend in, er, vanilla."

An entire bottle of vanilla extract was dumped into the vat, which Dedede was now stirring rapidly with an oversized spoon. Once it seemed blended enough, Bandanna Dee read off "Now divide evenly between the pans."

There were only a few cake pans present. All together, they fit about a tenth of the batter. The rest they decided would have to be baked in the bowl. "Now put the pans in the preheated oven for half an hour," finished Bandanna Dee, who gulped as he said this. "Uh, guess we'll have to preheat the oven…"

Meta Knight slammed his face into the wall, holding back his curses for the stupidity of his fellow bakers.

After a very painful few minutes, the oven heated up, or at least everyone got sick of waiting and shoved the cake pans in. As for the rest of the batter, they decided that since they really didn't have an oven big enough, they'd just have Dedede find somewhere to hide it while Meta Knight and Bandanna Dee cleaned up the frankly remarkable mess they had made.

However, only a few minutes after they put the cake in, a Waddle Doo came running into the kitchen, winded. "Sire!", he cried. "It's Kirby, he's decimated our forces and there's nothing we can do to halt his progress! Whispy Woods, Lololo and Lalala, Kracko, everyone's down!"

A small squeal of terror came out of Bandanna Dee, but he quickly took a sharp breath and ordered "Waddle Doo, you find the king! Meta Knight, you try to turn the over up and frost that thing! Understood?"

"Y-yes!", the Waddle Doo looked at Bandanna Dee in shock as he grabbed his spear and began to dash down the hall. "But what about you?"

Turning back around and narrowing his eyes, he gave a solemn declaration: "I'll distract Kirby."

The Waddle Doo's eyes filled with tears. "Godspeed, good sir," he whispered as Bandanna Dee sped off. Meta Knight simply groaned at their dramatics as he turned the oven up several hundred degrees.

King Dedede returned after a few minutes and simply stared at the now sobbing Waddle Doo and the now frosting Meta Knight. "Holey smokes, was he that fast?", he questioned in disbelief.

"Must not want to have to work long on his birthday," Meta Knight replied as he made little pink curls with the frosting as he applied it. "Now, go get a serving plate and a knife, maybe some paper plates."

Not a minute after the king produced said items, a very angry looking Kirby stormed down the hall. "Give back our food, you meanie!", he shouted, glaring daggers at the king. However, his eyes softened into a dreamy gaze as they fell upon the cake.

"Ooh, is that strawberry?", he questioned. Dedede nodded wordlessly. "Aah, that's my favorite!", Kirby cheerfully proclaimed as he grabbed the sword from Meta Knight's hand and used it to cut himself a rather large (read: very) piece.

As the puffball devoured his treat, Bandanna Dee crawled into the room, covered in wounds. "Sir, I couldn't hold him off, forgive me…", he weakly pleaded.

"Happy birthday, you pink pest," flatly cheered Dedede. "We made you that cake, so you better be grateful."

Kirby stared at the king for a moment before laughing brightly. "Silly Dedede, my birthday was in April!", he proclaimed. Everyone, save for the still sobbing Waddle Doo, could do nothing but stare on as the futility of their great task became apparent. "But thank you! It was super nice of you!"

King Dedede promptly fainted, and as Bandanna Dee rushed to attend to him, Meta Knight cut himself a small piece of cake and lifted his mask just enough to shove it in his mouth. He spit it out immedietly and proceeded to try to scrape all remnants of it off of his tongue.

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 _ **AN- So, yeah, this is only Kirby's American "birthday". His Japanese one, which is more official, was back in April. So, happy not-birthday, Kirby, and thank you for reading! –Twilight Joltik**_


End file.
